abraxaslogs | • OPEN •

Entry tags:

• OPEN •

WHO: anyone and everyone in solvunn, some minor npcs
WHAT: mingle for the summoned, a funeral rite
WHEN: a day or two after the new summoned arrive
WHERE: in the treehouse and its surrounding area
WARNING: tba as necessary in comments

A. THE SUMMER EQUINOX

Across the different territories, the celebration of the Summer Equinox has long been awaited ever since the Spring Equinox picnics and floral decorations came to an end. Now, to celebrate the longevity of the sun, performers from different corners of the commune go about to entertain the community; sheaves of wheat and hay adorn the fields, and the drier ones are used to make decorative masks and costumes.

The days grow longer, and the settlements are decorated in ribbons of bright colors and the few flowers that are even more colorful this time of year, to decorate crowns or clothes—making bracelets to share amongst children and couples. The trees are a deep green, the branches dancing with the warm breeze that comes up from the southern coast, and the commune settles onto a festive mood as sunsets late into the day bring beautiful colors to coast over and through the clouds.

The celebration moves now towards the Primary Settlement. Trees are decorated with strings and ribbons, young girls and women in their best white dresses, dancing around to the rhythm of the music of the local bands. Young children run around in their half-finished masks and costumes, some of them even carrying a pamphlet that they give out to the Summoned, whether they're new or not. The Maypole, still erect from Spring, is being prepared to be burnt later in the night. In the meantime, people are asked to participate and add to the bonfire: twigs and flower crowns and ribbons.

Likewise, as the community waits for night to fall to culminate their celebrations, a small market has opened. Tents are raised under the eaves of trees, different items to barter: precious gems, produce, smoked meats, clothes, yarn, tools—the list is endless, as traders from across the different settlements have come to this particular spot. Come and join in the spirits of the celebrations and on the commune’s intent to bond together.

B. THE LOCAL TASTE

When shadows start to fall onto the commune, the market takes a different nature. No longer is there trading, necessarily, but rather the owners of pubs and makers of brews are excited to take part in this year’s ‘brew crawl’. Locals and Summoned alike are welcome to participate, both in providing the brews they have concocted over time and to partake in the drinking.

From one ‘stand’ to the other, ales of all colors from golden yellows to mauve browns, there is not a single individual who will go thirsty under the colorful lights of the marketplace. Watch out for roots that stick from the ground or a change in the ground’s level, and be sure to have at least one partner to make the most of the brew crawl.

At one point, the sound of drums and wooden flutes will signal to a rise as the shadows deepen. Men and women alike are invited to dance as the bonfire flares up into a white, hot blaze; the children who have managed to remain awake join as well, wearing their masks and chasing each other around. The atmosphere is electric, the buzz of ale thrumming through people’s inhibitions, and the general joy of the day’s celebrations. Locals sing songs without instruments, harmonizing with one another as they dance circles around the burning Maypole.

The youths in their masks will then scatter into the dark, sneaking out towards swamps or forest, forming a ‘mini-Council’ and attempting to sacrifice or make offerings to the Cardinal Gods. One may find an Elder mage or two chastizing the youths, who run away when caught, or one may even find themselves the lead subject of one of these ‘rites’. One could either follow along or snitch on them.

C. A FOREST'S LAMENT

As the heavens blotch into inky black skies, the sun seems to gift Solvunn with a gift of colors and light even as it has already departed, as they approach midnight. Pale reds and greens decorate the sky; the perfect backdrop of darkened treetops.

A more solemn ceremony takes place some ways away from the Primary Settlement, by the Black Eye Lakes. Across the lake, the local band led by Tiril Blomare the authors of a solemn song that echoes across the trees, a concert not meant to have a public, lights above on the trees adorning the musicians. A special gift, as Tiril is so pregnant at this point that she can only stand as her husband, Declan, holds her upright.

With every new year comes death, and with every new year comes new life. The death of one of the Summoned does not go amiss to the Council and to the members of the commune, especially that of someone who was an active participant in much of Solvunn’s growth in the past two years. A few locals have come about to pay their respects to Nero. Solvunn may have other ceremonies, but this one in particular is one that both Himeka and Wanda decided on after conferring with one another. Grief is not easy, and grief is best not tackled alone.

Candles and ornaments have been set up by the shore of the lake, to be lit and set to float away. Anyone who wants to pay their respects can walk into the water, send off a quiet prayer; a few of the locals do as much.

Perhaps this will be enough.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

i. the summer equinox

Truthfully, Wrench really isn't in the mood for much ritualistic celebrating. It all feels a little too soon, as far as he's concerned. But life in the settlement moves on, and custom is as much a part of life now as it ever was. And while he could do without the masks and the matching outfits, the market is hard to overlook.

Maybe his time as a living God wasn't all bad. At the very least, Wrench seems a little more inclined to partake in things that aren't entirely necessary. He may not look like he's truly enjoying himself, but it's safe to say that he's probably a lot closer than he's ever been. And he's not shy about picking through what's available and taking his time to really consider what interests him.

He pays particular interest to the clothes and anything that might rightly be called a weapon. Solvunn still hasn't outfitted him with enough of those for his own liking. In the absence of things to do blunt damage with, he'll also peruse the tools. Summer may put a damper on the amount of demand, but Wrench has got plenty of warm things to use to barter with -- furs and tanned hides are plentiful. He'll happily swap with his fellow summoned as well, if anyone's in the market for some leather.

ii. the local taste

While it's not out of the ordinary to find Wrench having a drink at the local tavern, the man's never really let himself get drunk. He's not drunk now either he'll adamantly maintain, but he's a hell of a lot closer than he usually allows himself to be. It's going to take plenty more than alcohol alone to coax him into dancing, though the encouragement and gentle lead of a summoned or two who knows him well might do the trick. And it'll be a lot easier to urge him to join in with the drumming.

In fact, Wrench finds his way to the midst of that with ease, and soon enough he'll join in with the others, watching and helping to keep the beat. And after a few more glasses, he might just help the kids with their shenanigans. If an ear of sweet corn or a juicy apricot happens to find itself off a market stall and into their hands, the tall, silent man just might be the culprit.

iii. a forest's lament

He never really got the chance to know Nero, but Wrench has known plenty of loss. For the most part, he's never had the chance to pause and take stock of that. He's always had to keep moving, keep surviving, keep looking forward. Life hasn't afforded him the opportunity to truly reflect.

Now, he thinks it might be good to find the time. To hold space for a few other people here, while everyone's minds and hearts seem bent toward remembering. He stands throughout the concert, remaining some way off. Wrench lets others filter in to get the best seats and watches from his vantage point where he can see them all and focus not just on the singer and the man who holds her, but on the way the crowd reacts as well.

When it's all over and most of the mourners have already lit their candles and sent them off on the soft current, he approaches for a thoughtful moment of his own. It's not Nero he's got in mind right now, but no one really needs to know that anyway.

Wanda is fraught with emotion towards the end of the farewell ceremony. The concert comes to a dwindling stop, even as a few of the musicians remains to offer short solos of their instruments, though the singer has already left. The crowd dwindles as the night grows ever shorter, but the lake is too close to the treehouse for Wanda to stray too far away from its shores.

When she approaches Wrench, all she offers is a gentle, mental prod, a polite 'hey', before she bumps against him—into his shoulder, and leans there against him. It takes but a moment for one of her hands to wrap around his arm, a quiet signal of gratitude for his coming here.

With how peaceful it gets, it's easy to forget how dangerous this place can be.

Wrench doesn't need an empathetic connection with Wanda to see how the night's events have impacted her. When she approaches his gaze finds her immediately, and this time he doesn't second guess folding her against him. He sets his hand against the back of her head, then between her shoulders, then lets her hold onto him as they watch the flickering candles dance across the quiet surface of the lake.

He can't mourn the man he never really knew, but tonight seems to him to be about even more than that. It's a shared sense of loss and a somber realization that life here in Solvunn isn't always as he thinks of it. This place has been easy to Wrench, for the most part. It's been better than any other one that he's known. But that doesn't mean harm can't get in.

I've been viewing it as totally different from earth somehow. I guess wherever we are, the principles are the same. You can't outrun fighting and loss.

It also spells out a lot of worrying questions the Summoned should be asking themselves, regarding their place in this world and what all happens when they suffer such traumatic changes here; do they change back home, too? If they die here, are their souls or whatever essence makes them 'them', does it become trapped in Abraxas?

It scares me.

The words spelled out in his mind are small, almost like she almost didn't want to think that out loud. Still, they reach him, and she buries her face onto the warm leather of his jacket.

Thank you for being here.

—beyond that, for letting himself be a source of strength for her during this time. Any other time, she would mind not presenting herself as strong and sturdy towards others, but losing Nero has jostled up the cavern of trauma and loss that always carries with her.

By now Wrench has started admitting to himself that he's not in any hurry to leave this place. Whatever Solvunn and Abraxas as a whole have in store for him, he'd choose it a thousand times over, compared to whatever life is waiting for him back where he came from. He's spent no amount of time pondering the questions that are plaguing Wanda now, but Wrench remains convinced that he's better off trying to find ways to stay here, rather than to leave.

It's strange to think that might not be the same for everyone. It's even stranger to imagine that there might be people among them actively trying to find a way back into the world they left behind. Wrench doesn't want to imagine what he'd think if it were all or nothing; if they had to choose whether they all stayed or were all sent back.

I wish there was more I could do, but if being here helps anything, I'm glad to.

He wonders briefly if he should say more. If it would help or if it would only cause more pain. Wrench is sure Wanda could see it all plainly if she gave the slightest effort to pry, but as far as he knows she never has, and he's grateful to her for that.

I never got the chance to bury the people I lost. I had to keep moving. I think it's good, to take the time for something like this.

Wanda has, unfortunately, been here many times before. At one point, in this very scene of saying farewell to someone with a ceremony by a lake. She can unfortunately count the people she's lost in both hands, and that's two hands too many. Her suffering losses is not unique, though, and she figures that a lot of those who are summoned here have also their fair share of loss to deal with, of grief and trauma, of forsaken dreams.

She pulls back a touch to glance at him properly, though her hand finds its way to his—by the wrist, holding tightly.

I know what it's like to keep moving, and I never stayed where my loved ones were buried in.

Any option is bittersweet. There's no 'being lucky' just because a ritual was performed where another never had the chance to; to lose someone is the most painful fate, in her opinion.

Promise me you'll be extra careful. Don't stray too far from the settlements on your own.

Loss, for Henry, only ever transmogrifies itself into anger. The sentimentality of these sort of send-offs, quiet and contemplative, do not quite reach at his core they way it intends to, but he understands the purpose. The way grief attempts to resolve itself through ritual—or at least that’s what plenty try to tell themselves, what they hope for—is not unheard of.

Truth be told, with such a middling investment in tonight, it’s a wonder he’s here at all. But Henry Creel is oft driven by his curiosity, and when most of those attending have already left, when the music wanes into something soft and dying, this is when he draws closer. Examining the candlelight glow flickering at a distance.

Seems like he’s not the only one. He doesn’t know this man — but intrude on this moment of quietude, he does, anyway.

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” he says, coming to stand beside him, hands clasping behind his back.

Grief and anger have always lived too close to one another for Wrench's liking. He tries his best to avoid them both, though sometimes it seems like he has it out for all the emotions. Happiness can make you complacent, but anger can make you sloppy. It's better not to question why things happen at all. It's better just to ride the whims of fate like a current you know you can't change. And maybe he'd remember that a little better if he hadn't just spent the last 800 years playing at being a God, or whatever the hell that was.

Wrench is staring out across the lake, watching the candlelight dance and flicker and break across the surface of the inky water. He's not exactly startled by the other man's approach, but he is surprised. The realization of how far he's been in his own little world makes his face go hard, and he turns on the stranger with a little more intent than necessary.

I'm Deaf, he signs it so quickly and so sharply he can really only intend to make a point. Thankfully, Wrench seems to realize it's all a lot coming from the 6'4" silent man, and he relents just enough to switch to brain texting.

We haven't met. Did you know Nero?

An edge to the other's body language. He sees it, and though Henry's not a man of short stature by any means, Wrench is still taller, built sturdier, and signs so keenly that he can't help but fix his gaze on him properly. He demands attention.

Deaf. Ah. He tilts his head, assessing in that curious, probing way of his, a bit like the way he considers everyone he just meets: like a man looking at an insect in a jar. But the moment is there and gone, and he bends his smile into its usual polite and peaceable nature. He brain-texts him expediently in return.

Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude.

(This is not true. He doesn't care quite enough if he does.)

Only in passing. I'm a friend of Wanda's, and I know Nero was important to her.

My name's Henry.

Wrench watches for that flicker of recognition as if by instinct. He's surprised — though definitely not disappointed — that it comes and goes so quickly. No stumble, no apology, no looking around for the quickest route the hell out of there. It's a nice change of pace. It's also all the more reason to size the man up, though knowing that he's a friend of Wanda's goes a long way toward resolving things.

At least for a moment, until Wrench realizes that he can actually place the face after all. Not because he and Henry have ever met, but because he's seen that face in a vision. It was a long while back and now it feels even longer, but he's absolutely sure the man is the same. He curls his lips around a knowing smile and nods something like a greeting.

I'm Wrench. I didn't know him either. Guess it was more God stuff?

Ah, yes, that pesky vision. It has earned him a bit of notoriety at worst, or simple passing familiarity with strangers at best. Either way, he wasn't exactly grateful for having his face plastered across everyone else's mental awareness as though the Singularity were blaming him for something, but for now, that's neither here nor there.

He shrugs a little, a gesture that's perhaps too casual for the occasion and the topic at hand. If Wrench cares to size Henry up properly, he's met demeanor of a man who stands straight-backed and purposefully proper—old orderly habits, after all—but relaxed enough to seem relatively unaffected.

If you mean how he was killed, then yes. I was told that he was attacked by some sort of... guardian of last rites.

A lot's happened to the Summoned in the time I've been in Abraxas, but this is the first time I know of that someone's actually died.

He can fake a sort of formality for moments at a time, but Wrench has a tendency to view himself as something half-feral. It's only in the last couple of months that he's allowed himself to be talked into maintaining something like permanent shelter here in Solvunn, and the recent storms have gone a long way toward putting him back out into the elements. Had they all stayed Gods for just a little while longer, Wrench might've let the underbrush and the moss fully consume him.

Back home he might've viewed a man who carried himself like Henry as a person of natural authority. Or an easy target. Right now, Wrench just wonders what he's hoping to portray. How much do those good finishing school habits help him out here?

Summoned disappear plenty, though. I guess no one knows for sure if they go back to where they were pulled from?

So now we get to wonder, if you die in Solvunn do you die back home?

If only it was finishing school manners. Rather, it's what the time in the lab hammered into him, at first dictated by Papa; and after, it was so easy to wear a mask of politeness to tamp down the bitterness, anger, and discontent. It was expected of him at first, and now, it's simply second nature to wear. Easy to interact with others when they think you're friendly and non-threatening.

A pale brow quirks. He gazes out towards the water again, where candlelight flickers with an amber glow.

There's a big difference between "disappear" and "killed." One of them earns you a somber festival like this one.

Though I guess we don't know either way. I'd rather not find out for myself anytime soon.

Gone is gone, Wrench thinks to himself. Still, the idea that all a person needs to do to have a celebration in their honor is to die is something that amuses him. He snorts through his nose, sounding about halfway to a laugh that he isn't trying hard enough to mask. It's not exactly a fair trade, is it? And since his reawakening, the tall man can't stop thinking about whose losses are acknowledged and who has no one to speak on their behalf. How many people, exactly, have come and gone, he wonders?

Henry's statement makes him quirk his eyebrow in surprised. Wrench knows not everyone shares his own private certainty that Solvunn is the best place he could ever hope to be. He knows there are Summoned who left behind families and loved ones when they were pulled here. He's almost certain that virtually all of them have someone on the other side that they miss or they wonder about. But is it possible that Henry doesn't either?

You mean you're not in a hurry to go back home?

To put it bluntly: It’s Complicated.

Does he have anything he wants to return to? When all that awaits him is a strange purgatory with only a lightning storm rumbling through it, striking electricity across every limb of his body? Or even the lab, its own kind of prison, filled with people who wronged him, people he hates?

No, there’s nothing for him to return to, but the ire bolsters him, makes him want to find a way back so that he can do what needs to be done. Find a way back to his home “plane.” Make the people who hurt him suffer; make the world…

Well. He’s not sure, now. Not after so long in this one. Not after what he’s learned about a future that hasn’t come to pass for him.

But the rest applies. And his pride, too, is affected by remaining in this world overlong, and he explains as much.

A hurry? Not particularly. “Home” never granted me much of anything.

But eventually, I’d like to go back. This world has afforded me more freedom than I’ve had in a long time, but we weren’t brought here by choice. We can’t leave by choice. It’s still a prison, you just can’t see the walls.

And I’d rather not be killed by an angry god to see if I can get back that way, either. I’d like things happening on my own terms, that’s all.

Wrench isn't expecting to find so much to agree to in the other man's response. He's been trying to hide the particulars of his own story since the moment he arrived. Knowing Solvunn has several powerful telepaths among its ranks hasn't exactly made that easy, but they've been good not to pry. And Wrench does take them at their word when they say they haven't pried. He's still absolutely convinced that if anyone knew the man he'd been before he landed here, they would've told everyone and he'd have earned the distinct honor of being the first summoned immediately banished to the Tertiary Settlement.

Solvunn might be a prison; he can agree to that. But home was a prison as well, and at least here he isn't being actively hunted.

Have you found any evidence of that being possible?

Is that what you were trying to do, with the portal and the animals?

Wrench doesn't know if he'll ask it until the words are already being formed. Maybe there's something helpful about the brain texting. It's so easy to lose his filter when all he has to do is think in a more forward direction. He doesn't seem to fault the man. Sure, the words themselves don't exactly convey emotion like spoken ones might, but Wrench's expression is entirely curious.

His polite little grin skews wry. He supposes anyone who hasn't met him yet but has been here long enough to see that vision seared into their heads thanks to the Singularity would eventually ask. Henry flicks his gaze at Wrench; once blue-eyed, now one is crimson in the low light.

No. That didn't have as much intent behind it.

Does that make it better or worse? That's up for debate, but he had not gone beckoning something strange from the other side for the sake of leaping through a portal and hoping it led home. If only it were so easy.

I sensed something on the other side. And I just gave it a little tug; the consequences of that were entirely unintended. So. Sorry for the hassle.

"Hassle" is one word to describe a monster invasion, sure.

The trick to being a multi-instrumentalist is really, once you've played enough instruments, especially of a kind, it gets easier to just kind of figure new ones out. So even -- or maybe especially -- a rare few-drinks-in, when the man playing lyre gets up to wander and offers the instrument to any onlooker willing, Teddy picks it up with relish, excitedly running her hands over the strings, then practically listening to the tuning. Slowly, then more surely, she starts in with a plucking method that lets her improvise around chords along with the singers.

They brighten, recognizing Wrench when he folds himself down into the drum circle, picking up the beat. The tall man's a little hard to miss, sure -- Teddy's standing, but they could probably set the lyre on his shoulder without slouching (which admittedly is as much about their own height as his, but only a little).

But he's far from ubiquitous enough to create the kind of an impression that elicits a smile. Even after the 800 years swirling in Teddy's head, it's more of an idea, a sort of concept -- though a little more of one than he'd had before (nearly a millennium will do that), left a bit curious about the cryptic Patron of the Condemned. No, though: it's the pitch Wrench had made to be Conclave Representative -- specific, not placating or generic; leaning unexpectedly hard on improving things for the Tertiary Settlement -- that had left Teddy feeling optimistic and inspired.

When there's a moment of pause, she approaches, lifting a hand in hello. "Hey! Your speech the other day, it was --"

The possible mistake catches up to her, her enthusiasm balanced out by an equal and opposite delay in deduction. It wasn't a speech, in the most technical sense of the word, was it: it'd been text. Which doesn't mean he can't hear her, necessarily, just that he doesn't — or doesn't prefer - to talk, but-- it could?. Teddy winces, feeling a bit like this self-debate is being projected for the entire public on her face. She takes a breath and resets, directing her thoughts the way she might in a private text conversation. Which is honestly a little easier with someone to look at, really.

I'm sorry. Hi. Did you catch any of that?

Edited 2024-06-12 09:22 (UTC)

For most of his life, Wrench's reputation has, indeed, preceded him. It's been something of a complicated relief to know there's little he can do on his own behalf to change the minds of those who have already been set toward a series of assumptions about him. Certainly, it's made it easier for him to play his role. There was something familiar in all of that during the time they all played as Gods, and maybe it's part of what granted Wrench the audacity to finally stand up and try to wield some power.

Truthfully, though, it's not the power he's interested in. It never has been, though he knows well enough that possessing it could come with all kinds of perks he's never experienced. All of those things are things he's been taught to be wary of and seek to avoid, so knowing now they might be granted to him as representative makes him wonder, secretly, if he hasn't done the wrong thing. He's not used to people catching his eye and wanting to talk to him, either, but he knows it's part of the package of what he's accepted. He should at least try to play the role.

And the slight frame in front of him now isn't wholly unfamiliar, though it feels harder to place what memories might be real and which might be a figment of whatever mutual delusion they might've all shared in. He regards Teddy with raised eyebrows and a mild expression, until they change their course of action. In that, Wrench is almost surprised. But he realizes once again his reputation very well may have spoken before he could.

I could guess, but this is probably better. Did we meet before? I'm Wrench.

He sort of just looks at Teddy with slightly raised eyebrows, and if anything it just makes him feel like a little more of an idiot, but he relaxes a little when the man replies. (In color! Teddy hasn't ever even thought of doing that. The ginger-pumpkin tone seems right.)

It's not so much reputation -- at least, not that Teddy's absorbed -- that changes Teddy's tack as much as odd dreamlike memory and the feeling that it's liable to turn out better, speaking back the way someone speaks to you.

Their tentative smile does twitch upward at his reply a little, though, because he has just introduced himself on a territory-wide level. Also, because:

Well, now I want to know what you'd have guessed! But yes, probably it is. And... Teddy makes a slight face: what counts? She thinks that she's one of only a handful of people who's come to the decision that that 800 years was just as real as it wasn't; that doesn't mean she can just say that, though. Depends what you mean by before? I don't think we ever introduced ourselves, anyway. I'm Teddy. They offer a hand and a little wry smile.

They add after a moment, taking a sip of their beer (and oh, hey, they can drink and think at the same time, how about that) and regaining some of the intent they'd come over with,
I know it's a little weird, even here, to just walk up to a person. I just wanted to say, the pitch you gave for representative was -- great. It wasn't... you didn't bother with appealing to everyone, you know?

It's not that the others -- Julia, Nebula -- had seemed insincere. Teddy knows Julia (sort of?) and knows her to care about things deeply; they get the feeling from Nebula that she's just taciturn and no-bullshit, and some of what she'd said had clearly been a nod to past issues. It's just that they hadn't been as direct about their biases, and that strikes Teddy as honest in a different way.

You obviously care, and I think it's an important thing. I mean...standing up for what you care about, in general. But I meant the Tertiary Settlement.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

• OPEN •

Wrench | Fargo TV | The Hanged Man

iii

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

iii

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

ii

no subject

no subject